Walt Ruloff, the executive producer of the Ben Stein movie EXPELLED: NO INTELLIGENCE ALLOWED, has an amazing op-ed in today’s Baylor Lariat, the school newspaper. WOW!
BU administration silencing science by design
Sept. 18, 2007It may sound like a crazy question, but it needs to be asked: Does the administration at Baylor believe in God?
This is a legitimate question in light of the university’s heavy-handed actions in shutting down the research Web site of Dr. Robert Marks.
As many of you have heard, Marks, a distinguished professor of electrical and computer engineering, has been conducting research that ultimately may challenge the foundation of Darwinian theory. In layman’s terms, Marks is using highly sophisticated mathematical and computational techniques to determine if there are limits to what natural selection can do.
At Baylor, a Christian institution, this should be pretty unremarkable stuff. I’m assuming most of the faculty, students and alumni believe in God, so wouldn’t it also be safe to assume you have no problem with a professor trying to scientifically quantify the limits of a blind, undirected cause of the origin and subsequent history of life?
It would seem this kind of research would be praised and encouraged at Baylor.
But the dirty little secret is university administrators are much more fearful of the Darwinian Machine than they are of you.
I’ve spent the last two years of my life researching the widely accepted Neo-Darwinian theory and the theory of Intelligent Design.
My team and I (including lawyer, economist, actor, game show host and social commentator Ben Stein) have interviewed dozens of the world’s top experts in biology, astronomy, physics and philosophy.
What we have uncovered in our documentary film, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, is an attack on freedom of speech and scientific inquiry that is as frightening as it is appalling. And it’s happening right here at Baylor.
Last month Dr. Ben Kelley, dean of engineering and computer science, shut down Marks’ Web site. He apparently had the blessing of President John Lilley. Why? The university put forth a bunch of phony-baloney procedural explanations that don’t stand up to scrutiny.
The truth however, can be found in an e-mail sent to Marks by Ben Kelley in which he told Marks, “I have received several concerned messages…” about his Web site. These complaints have been kept anonymous. How convenient.
Here’s what’s going on: Somebody within the scientific community let Kelley know that Marks was running a Web site that was friendly to Intelligent Design.
Such a thing is completely unacceptable in today’s university system — even at a Christian institution. Kelley was probably told to have the site shut down immediately or suffer the consequences.
What are those consequences? The ultimate penalty is to have Baylor marginalized by being designated as not a “legitimate institution of higher learning.” So designated merely for the “crime” of allowing Neo-Darwinism to be questioned, since conventional elitist wisdom holds it’s no longer a theory but an inviolable truth.
Do you think this is some kind of fanciful conspiracy theory? Google the names of Richard Sternberg, Caroline Crocker, Guillermo Gonzalez, Dean Kenyon and Bill Dembski and see what you find. These distinguished scientists have suffered severe consequences for questioning Darwinian theory and there are hundreds, if not thousands, more.
We want to speak with President Lilley about this academic suppression, so we are going to give him one more chance. Mr. Stein is sending a crew down to knock on President Lilley’s door Thursday, September 20.
Will he talk? We hope so. But even if he doesn’t, the actions of the Baylor administration will be in our film.
Walt Ruloff
Executive producer, Premise Media